New Delhi: A parliamentary panel has asked the Ministry of Education (MoE) to fill all vacant teaching positions in government schools for the timely implementation of the new National Education Policy (NEP).
According to MOE dataBy December 31, 2022, about 10 lakh teacher posts were lying vacant in primary, primary, secondary and higher secondary level government schools in the country. Out of 62,71,380 sanctioned posts at the state level, 9,86,565 — or 15.7 percent — are empty.
The parliamentary panel’s report, made public on Tuesday, recommended that these posts should be filled in a “time-bound manner”.
Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, headed by BJP MP Vijay Thakur, gave his report after Scrutiny of Demands for Grants By Department of School Education and Literacy for the financial year 2023-24.
As per the data submitted to the panel, 7,47,565 posts are vacant at the elementary level, 1,46,334 at the secondary level and 92,666 at the senior secondary level.
The statement by the panel read, “The Committee, therefore, recommends that the Department encourage State Governments to expedite the recruitment process to fill up the vacancies of teaching staff in a time-bound manner to achieve 30:1 student-teacher ratio.” As envisaged under the New Education Policy, 2020.
The panel also flagged the lack of transparency in the recruitment process. Teacher’s.
transparent recruitment process
Pointing out that the recruitment process lacks transparency and is “cumbersome”, its panel “The committee recommends that an autonomous teacher recruitment board should be constituted at the state level as recommended by some of the education committees,” the report said.
The panel also acknowledged the progress of the department in terms of student enrollment numbers post pandemic, asking it to ensure better utilization of funds under the National-Means-cum-Merit Scholarship Scheme for students from economically weaker sections.,
On the central government’s PM Schools for Rising India (SHRI) scheme launched last year, the panel said the department should “vigorously” take up the issue with the eight states that are yet to sign up – Bihar, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
Under the scheme, 14,500 schools are to be upgraded at a cost of Rs 27,360 crore (including the central government’s share of Rs 18,128 crore) over a period of five years.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)